Clean-up process starts in Najaf following fighting

A clear-up operation has started in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf after three weeks of fighting between US forces and the Mehdi army loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr. Local residents started returning, often to be faced by destruction caused by the bloody conflict. Peace came about last week when Iraq's top Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani negotiated an end to the fighting. Around a dozen municipal workers, together with 90 volunteers from the nearby city of Karbala, were out in the streets, cleaning up pavements and sweeping shrapnel fragments off roads where battle-scarred buildings stand. US soldiers were seen handing out water to children, giving an impression of safety and security. Buildings are riddled with bullet holes and electric wires are spread across the streets. In a press conference on Monday, the Minister of State, Qassim Daoud spoke of the scale of destruction: "It is horrible and it is difficult to know where to start." Daoud added they would probably start rebuilding hospitals first, followed by public works and then begin compensating people for their losses. There is great concern over medical aid available to the injured, with sketchy details on which hospitals are open. Some US $214 million in US aid was earmarked for Najaf before the latest conflict and will serve as the initial money to initiate US-Iraqi reconstruction, he said. More than 300 families, nearly 2,800 people, had left Najaf, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Some are slowly returning and are searching for what is left of their homes seeking help from aid agencies. At least 120 families are estimated to be homeless now. Residents were blaming US troops and Sadr's forces for the damage and destruction. "They didn't have the right to do this. My shop is totally destroyed and my home has been ransacked, who is going to repair it?" Salman Adnan, asked having recently returned to the area with seven family members. "Moqtada didn't have the right to destroy our city". "Life has not been easy for us for such a long time and we need peace. I saw so much fighting during my life and wish that children don't have to go through what I have. I lost my shop in the last war in Saddam's regime and now I have lost it again," Ali Bakr, a shopkeeper from the old city, told IRIN. In a pledge to help rebuild battered parts of the city, the Kuwaiti minister of information announced on Sunday said that $65 million had been earmarked for Iraq and that this decision was due to the situation in Najaf. Of this amount, $5 million will be set aside for Najaf, and the rest will be used to build schools and hospitals around Iraq, to be supervised by the government's Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development. ICRC said in addition to helping the homeless in Najaf, it was sending water supplies and aid workers to Sadr city, a Baghdad suburb, where US troops were also fighting members of the Mehdi army. Water is said to be in short supply there as some pipes had been destroyed. "We hope there is no more combat in Iraq, but the ICRC will always be giving assistance to the Iraqi people," Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman for ICRC in Iraq, told IRIN. Last Saturday a large convoy of trucks from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society took clothes, medicine and generators to Najaf, Fallujah, Samara and Hawija. The latter three cities have also been the scene of fighting. Another problem in Najaf is the vast Wadi al-Salam cemetery, where some of the most intense fighting in the city took place. It is now littered with unexploded ordnance and has become one of the most dangerous areas in the holy city. "The sad thing is that they used some of the graves to implant these explosives and it is very complicated to know where. Families want to visit their relatives buried there and you don't know if they will be safe." Maj Gen Ghalib al-Jazarie, a Najaf police commander, told IRIN. His officers have started to clear the cemetery of hazardous munitions, while seeking help from demolition experts in Baghdad. Al-Jazarie added that there were also unexploded devices on the streets of the city. The slow clean-up process has proved painful for local residents who are desperately looking forward to a peaceful future. "I have my father, husband and son buried here and I cannot find their graves, I feel like I have lost them again," Sahira Muhammad, a mother of five, told IRIN as she wept. "My son died in the last war, killed by US troops and now they killed him again," she claimed.